golf clap
ETA- Seriously tho, I’m really digging **Hedda Rosa’s **plan. I don’t remember ever actually believing in anything, but I sure as heck enjoyed the rituals!
9 really? My Dog that seems old to be holding onto fairy tales. My kids had worked this out years before…
I thought the same thing. I don’t remember ever believing in the tooth fairy, but I caught on to the Santa Claus thing when I was four, and I guess I figured if he was fake, they all must be. My mother is the one that wouldn’t accept me knowing the truth, so I spent a few years playing along, for her sake.
That being said, my best friend has an eight-year-old and a nine-year-old, and I think they still believe. They are bright little boys, but they’re also just naturally accepting and optimistic about things. I think the two of them have way more fun than I ever did, as a born cynic.
My sons asked “is there really a Tooth Fairy?” at the age of eight. I will make up stories and pretend as long as they like, but I feel the answer to “is there really?” should be the truth. I told them it was a story we pretend about because it’s fun to pretend. They asked about Santa not long after and I gave the same answer. We still pretend about Santa and the Tooth Fairy for the fun of it; we just know that everyone is pretending. It is still fun, special, and memory-making. They still want the pretend.
Are you saying the tooth fairy isn’t real? Because I actually knew a little girl who was an eyewitness to her.
She said the tooth fairy was green and purple and had horns. I was tempted to tell her “Your mom isn’t that ugly.”
I am probably a bad mother, but I tell them that things like the Tooth Fairy, Santa, and the Easter Bunny aren’t real. They are fun and make believe like cartoons. Of course at 5, they know more than I do and insist these things are real and I just don’t know what I am talking about. So while I am confident in my honesty, they still will believe whatever they want to even if I don’t buy into it or go along with it. Crazy kids, but I love 'em.
My 6-year-old daughter, in response to my claim that the tooth fairy is real: “Oh, yeah? Well, if you believe in the tooth fairy so much, then why don’t you go to church?!”
I found out about Santa on my own, when I was not quite five years old.
By nearly the end of December it’s dark outside by 6:30PM. when we would leave for the Christmas Eve children’s service at church. So, my folks and my younger sister are all in the car, and Mom remembers something she forgot inside. Through a crack in the curtains I can see her in the kitchen, putting away the milk and cookies(Oreos, the best for Santa). Santa was supposed to come while we were gone.
I never told them I knew because I wasn’t sure if the Christmas(and Easter) candy would stop if I let on I was in on the gag.
Later, when I was around eight, my mother says she broke the news about Santa being pretend to me, and my reply was “I know that!” It’s strange that I remember becoming a “non believer”, but not my mother’s news.
Seriously, how many 9-year-olds still believe in these things?
I was 6 or 7 when I busted my dad with the change under the pillow. It wasn’t anything like, “you lied to me!” though - I let him do it while I pretended to sleep and then I crept out to the kitchen and jumped out and yelled, “haha, I caught you, I knew it was you!” No big deal.
I don’t think I ever really believed in the Easter Bunny, but I still get presents from Santa.
I agree with those who are amazed that 9 year olds still believe. Are you sure they just aren’t playing along? I remember at age five telling my father Santa couldn’t possibly be real because reindeer don’t fly. I assume if that part of the story hadn’t been told to me I might have believed longer.
We had to tell my son there was no tooth fairy whenever it was he lost his first tooth. He was panicked that some stranger was going to come into his room while he slept. Of course we lived on the south side of Chicago and he had been often coached about behavior with strangers.
I gotta know…how’d the conversation go?
My son is almost 7 and he’s beginning to get suspicious about Santa. I’m sure the jig will be up this coming year. I almost blew it with the Easter Bunny this year. By next year, I don’t think either kid will buy it that there’s a Santa or Easter Bunny. I’m sure the Tooth Fairy will be lumped into that category, too.
I was 7 when I discovered all the presents in a closet in the garage and figured out that Santa wasn’t real. My sister and I quickly became handy enough with a box cutter that we were able to slit open the Christmas presents, play with them and re-wrap them in the middle of the night without mom noticing. That way we didn’t have to wait around for Santa.
Update: Son said nothing about it to me when I picked him up from school; but when it was bedtime, he told me that he had caught Dad in the act of putting money under his pillow, and Dad admitted that it was him doing it. Son then asked me if it was true that his Dad and I were the Tooth Fairy, and I said yes. He asked why, and I used **llcoolbj77’**s explanation that it was a story parents told so it would be more fun and not so gross to lose teeth. He thought about that for a minute, then asked me if I threw the teeth out; I told him no, I kept them all (and also those of his older brother). He laughed about that, and that was the end of the conversation! No crying, no questions about Santa or the Easter Bunny. Whew! I guess I’m safe until December!
Although it still makes me a kinda sad, just a little bit of the magic of childhood has gone.
Isn’t 9 way too old to be believing in these things? I remember when I was 8 or 9 (42 years ago) and the 2nd grade teacher told her class there was no Santa Claus. We 4th graders were incensed that she’s take it upon herself to burst their bubble, but none of us believed at that point.
StG
Oh! I believed in the Tooth Fairy a bit longer myself, after my brother swore up and down that he had seen her. He said she had a wand with a star on it.
Later he confessed that he was just getting me back because of the time I saw the Easter Bunny. Which I totally did. :mad:
It’s just a sign that a new type of magic is coming soon. Wait… that’s not magic, it’s grief, your son will be a <gasp> teenager soon 
Hey, there’s good magic, and then there’s bad magic. The Puberty Fairy is a real bitch!
I was the youngest child of three. When we got older, my sister was the Easter Bunny in the sense that she would buy candy and set up our baskets to be “discovered” in the morning. When she went off to college, it became my brother’s job. I was not aware of this. I figured it was my parent doing it.
Cue Easter morning the first year my brother went off to college… “Where’s my Easter basket?” My Mom responded, “Oh we forget to tell you, you are now the Easter Bunny.” Daggers!!!
Yeah, at 9 you were on borrowed time anyway. There are some kids who keep these beliefs into middle school, but that’s a very small minority. My daughter will be 5 in a couple weeks, and I’m just hoping she gets another year of Christmas out of Santa before she figures it out. I was 5 or 6 before I noticed that Santa’s handwriting was the same as my mom’s, and I called her on it. My nephew is 8, and I don’t know whether he still believes or whether he’s playing along for the sake of his 4 year old sister, but I suspect it’s leaning toward the latter at this point, just due to how he acts when Santa or the easter bunny is brought up.
It’d be fun to have my impending son be old enough to understand the Santa thing, and have my daughter still believe, but I don’t think we’ll make it that long. 